


How a Heart Breaks

by ShaneVansen



Category: Fringe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, UST, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaneVansen/pseuds/ShaneVansen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how a heart breaks.  Post-ep for <i>Jacksonville</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How a Heart Breaks

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for prompts, irony_rocks gave me "She traces the engraved letters in the smooth granite", and now there's post-Jacksonville fic. I guess it was bound to happen eventually.
> 
> Title (and summary) taken from Rob Thomas' _This is How a Heart Breaks_, because I suck at titles.
> 
> Many thanks to borg_princess for betaing; as always, any remaining errors or weird syntax belong solely to yours truly.

He _glimmers_.

Distantly, Olivia wonders how something so beautiful can look like the end of her world.

**

They find a reason to get Peter and Astrid out of the house, and then Walter explains as much as he can remember.

Part of Olivia can understand; she made some questionable decisions when trying to save John, and she would turn the universe upside-down if anything ever happened to Ella, so she gets that need to do everything possible to save a loved one.

Most of her, though, is horrified on so many levels that she can't even comprehend them all. Partial sympathy and overwhelming horror end up leaving her numb, and by the time Walter finishes his story, she's too exhausted to even cry.

**

In the end, she agrees to keep the secret. She tells herself it's for Peter's sake but really, she's being selfish and she knows it.

**

Peter, of course, knows something's up. He knew her almost scarily well within months of their first meeting, so she should have known she'd never be able to keep something this big from him.

Olivia knows he thinks it's his fault that she can't spend any time in the same room as him, that she can barely even look at him; he thinks he pushed too hard, too fast, and that she's running scared. She wishes she could tell him that she spent the entire drive over to his place that night hoping they would get to finish their interrupted kiss.

Fate, she decides, is a bitch.

**

The glimmer comes and goes, sometimes so bright she can't make out his features beneath the glow, other times non-existent. Olivia wonders if it's the nature of the drug, something to do with a connection to the other side, or a reflection of the strength of her fear.

She misses the days when she wasn't afraid of anything.

**

It takes weeks, bordering on months, before she can be something like normal around him again. The glimmer becomes something that's part of him, like the colour of his eyes or the way he lounges in the chair when he's bored, and she learns to see past it. He's still _Peter_, after all, still the same man who works cases with her and translates Walter's mad scientist jargon and tries to make her smile when things are rough.

She pretends not to notice how _happy_ he is now that she's no longer avoiding him.

**

He touches her more.

Peter's a tactile person; she's known that almost from the beginning. After the awkwardness passes, though, it's like he's making up for lost time, and then some; it's as if he can't be within arm's reach of her without touching her in some way.

Olivia doesn't mind, exactly; there's something comforting about his fingers brushing over hers to get her attention, or his hand against her lower back when she precedes him through a door. It's just that the guilt of her knowledge seems to double with every touch, and she's not sure how much more she can take.

**

She ends up kneeling in the damp grass of a cemetery, facing his headstone.

It's not really Peter's grave, of course; at least, not _her_ Peter's. Her Peter is alive and well, and she never met the little boy who's buried beneath the earth in front of her. Something drew her to this place, though, and sitting here, staring at the years of birth and death carved into the grey stone, she suddenly understands that this crushing feeling she's been carrying around with her ever since she learned the truth is grief.

For this little boy, for the man whose world will one day fall apart around him, even for herself and the _something_ that's been building between them, she's been grieving.

It all suddenly seems very simple.

She traces the engraved letters in the smooth granite, and whispers something like a prayer.

A final brush of her fingers over cold stone, and Olivia turns and heads for the car. She knows what she needs to do.

**

"Peter? We need to talk."

**

_\--end--_


End file.
